Study Reveals Top Alternative Paper Websites

The Media Audit FYI
June 2013

A new study analyzing the nation's top 100 alternative newspapers
and their websites reveals that Madison, Wisconsin's Isthmus ranks
highest in website reach with adults 18+. According to the study,
15.2% of the Madison metro area's population has visited the
newspaper's website Thedailypage.com within the past 30 days.
The figure represents nearly 70,000 unique monthly visitors alone
to the newspaper's website. Taking into account duplication between
the print audience and digital audience, the website for the
popular alternative news weekly adds more than 27,000 additional
adults to the paper's overall reach.

As more readers are shifting to digital content, alternative
newspapers are seeing greater impact that their websites have on
total reach. As a result, The Media Audit provides analysis that
breaks down each paper's monthly reach, their website reach, and
the total unduplicated net reach for the combined audiences.
A top line summary of these findings will be available at next
month's Association of Alternative Newsmedia Annual Convention in
Miami.

Charlottesville, Virginia's C-Ville Weekly ranks number two in
the national study with 14.7% of the metro area's 18+ population
having visited the website C-ville.com in the past 30 days,
followed by Austin, Texas's Austin Chronicle (13.9% reach for
Austinchronicle.com), Springfield, Illinois's Illinois Times (11%
reach for Illinoistimes.com) and Charlottesville, Virginia's The
Hook (10.9% reach with Readthehook.com).

When each newspaper's total readership and unique monthly
website visitors are combined for a total unduplicated net reach
figure, Charlottesville, Virginia's The Hook ranks as the top paper
in terms of total combined reach with adults 18+. According to the
same report, the newspaper and its website reach 51.1% of the metro
area's adults within a 30 day period. In Spokane, Washington,
The Inlander ranks number two nationally, reaching 43.4% of the
metro area's adults within a 30 day period. Charlottesville,
Virginia's C-Ville Weekly ranks third with a 42.2% total combined
reach.

Among the remaining top ten papers with the highest unduplicated
net reach include Springfield, Illinois's Illinois Times, with a
41.3% total unduplicated net reach, followed by Eugene, Oregon's
Eugene Weekly (36.9% reach when newspaper readership and website
visitors are combined).

Asheville, North Carolina's Mountain Xpress ranks sixth in the
nation, with 34.1% reach when the paper is combined with its
website, followed by Albuquerque, New Mexico's Weekly Alibi (33%
reach), Madison, Wisconsin's Isthmus (32.6% reach), San Diego,
California's San Diego Reader (30.6% reach), and Tucson, Arizona's
Tucson Weekly (30% reach).

The report also highlights the strengths of each paper, in terms of
which marketing channel delivers the greatest impact on total
overall reach. For example, New York City's Village Voice,
which reaches more than 1.2 million readers on a monthly basis,
reaches more than 1.5 million when the paper's website is added to
the total reach. As a result, the website adds an additional
300,000 to the newspaper's total unduplicated reach. Other
papers whose websites add a considerable amount of reach include
San Francisco's SF Weekly, where the paper's website adds an
additional 255,788 to the paper's total combined reach, and in Los
Angeles, where the LA Weekly website adds an additional 222,500 to
the paper's total reach.

The value that alternative newspaper websites bring to
advertisers is in their ability to reach upscale consumers.
Collectively, visitors to alternative newspaper websites earn an
average household income of $74,263, a figure that is $10,000
higher when compared to the average household income for the
general population. As a result, website visitors to alternative
newspaper websites are more likely to be in the market for big
ticket items such as automobiles and real estate. According to the
same study, visitors to alternative newspaper websites are 30% more
likely to earn a household income of over $100,000, 37% more likely
to be planning to buy a new vehicle in the next twelve months, and
36% more likely to be planning to buy a home in the next two
years.

The report was obtained from surveys conducted in 80+ markets
from more than 100,000 respondents. For more information on
alternative newspaper readers or visitors to alternative newspaper
websites, or for more information on a specific local market
survey, contact The Media Audit.